Investment buyers will snap up a higher proportion of homes in 2022 than they did in 2021, the Hamptons agency forecasts.
So far this year 12.2 per cent of homes were bought by investor, the highest level since 2016 and up marginally from the 11.7 per cent recorded during 2021. However, purchases remain below their 15.5 per cent peak in 2015, the year before the three per cent stamp duty surcharge was introduced.
Despite the proportion rising between 2021 and 2022 however, fewer sales overall mean the absolute number of investor purchases will be down by around 30,000 on last year.
Earlier in the year, many landlords struggled to make deals stack up while paying record prices and facing stiff competition from other buyers. Instead, they chose to sit back and wait.
The proportion of investors paying over the asking price remained above 40 per cent throughout 2021, before peaking at 48 per cent in April 2022 - a trend mirrored in the wider market).
However, over the last few months some landlords have re-emerged, turning their attention to homes which have been lingering on the market.
In November 37 per cent of offers by landlords were on homes without any competing offers, up from just 14 per cent in January. A less competitive market means that in November just 25 per cent of investor purchases were agreed above the asking price, compared to 30 per cent among first-time buyers.
Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons, says: “Rising rents are tempting landlords to dip a toe back into the slowing sales market to try and pick up deals they couldn’t have got six months ago. With sellers more open to negotiation and rents rising rapidly, returns for equity rich landlords have been rising.
“While we’re unlikely to see landlords return to buying at pre-stamp duty surcharge numbers, it’s possible they may outnumber first-time buyers in some months next year, as was common before 2016.”
It's a similar story when it comes to time on the market, with the average investor purchasing a home which had been on the market for 54 days in November, up from just 33 days in November last year.
By comparison, homes bought by first-time buyers last month had been marketed for an average of 40 days, while homes bought by movers (people selling their home to buy another) had been advertised for 50 days.
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Some maybe, but there will be many of us small landlords who have just had enough, me included. Tenants are still in trouble.
Probably the big boys buying up , then when the inevitable crash occurs they’ll scoop up what’s left at bargain prices …
Then shelter and Co can have a go at them , best of British luck , they’ll need it
Not in trouble if you are a new comer never done it before like a Retail Shop owner who has secured £500’000’000 funding from the City to mussel in on our business.
Policy’s are wrong like rent freeze in Scotland for existing Tenants if this is the case so the landlord who were always charging dollar are laughing all the way to the Bank.
The LL’s with very reasonable rents that haven’t put them up in years are Penalised and stuck
to the ground.
While landlords not locked-in starting a new Tenancy can charge Market Rent, shall we call it 30/40% more, this could be 2 identical adjacent properties, now with 2 very different incomes by law ?.
The economy is getting into a dreadful state not helped with stupid Policy’s. I don’t know who is doing the most damage is it Mickey Lynch or Mickey Gove.
Lynch is actually doing good for his members, I am one. The main issue is not the pay it’s the new conditions they want to impose on us. The following is the terms the employer wants, from emails with the union reps from the union.
The proposals are also conditional on your union accepting the following:
1. That all Workforce Changes are accepted without reservation or industrial action;
2. Closure of all ticket offices and displacement of all retail staff;
3. Creation of a new multi-skilled station grades;
4. A mass job severance programme;
5. Driver-Only Operation of trains in all companies and on all passenger services;
6. New arrangements for mandatory Sunday working;
7. A review of all On-Train Catering services leading to cutbacks in provision and jobs;
8. Review of Fleet grades' working practices and depot driving;
9. Flexible working contracts, working and rosters;
10. Mandatory adoption of new technology with no payment;
11. New Attendance Management scheme;
12. Review of Stood Off arrangements;
13. New annual leave and sick pay arrangements.
These conditions sound like the Railway industry wants to move with the times and be able to compete with the much superior levels of service and reasonable prices enjoyed by our European neighbours.
Lynch and other Luddites are turkeys voting for Christmas and deserve the inevitable fate awaiting everyone who refuses to modernise and adapt to changing circumstances.
This is not PRS as such. These will be pension funds and similar bodies. And maybe a lottery winner!
An advertorial by an estate agent / letting agent. I don't believe this.
Asking prices in Norwich are still far too high and they are not selling, auction reserves are also too high and a lot of them are not selling or being withdrawn from the auction because of lack of interest in the run up to the auction, prices are dropping but estate agents are still over valuing properties
Historically, there is often a surge in rental take ups after the Christmas holiday squabbles and fights and diviorces.
Good for LLs. :-)
I find it hard to believe that any properties are now selling above asking price. I guess anyone who had a mortgage offer prior to 23rd Sept is likely to see things through, which will support sold prices for a few weeks/months but once all those deals expire then things will change drastically. My mortgage guy says he is doing 100% remortgages just now, nobody is buying or moving house.
This landlord won't be buying any more properties... Quite the opposite... I've started selling my portfolio. My mortgages have all been paid off... I don't need to sell but I'm prepared to be shafted with capital gains taxes etc because I'm confident things are not going to improve for PRS landlords. I want out before the sh** really hits the fan. It wouldn't surprise me to see compulsory purchases in the future.
John McDonnell Corbyn’s shadow chancellor said compulsory purchases by tenants on PRS homes would be one of their policies.
Nick, no point in worrying about Mr John Mc Donnell we have our very own Scouse in the form of Mr Michael Gove the labour Housing Secretary in blue, with Portfolio for levelling Private Housing Sector to the ground.
I agree. I was just reminding everyone that the right to buy on PRS homes was a very real suggestion. Perhaps unpalatable then but the way things are going with Gove it could well come in. Not under him but as he pushes everything left, Labour need to achieve something so they will have to go further than the current rental reform proposals. So rent caps etc. More £30,000 fines. Apologies from landlords to tenants for chasing them for rent arrears? Right to buy? Or will landlords be made to gift properties to tenants and still pay CGT to the government on top? I don't know I want to get out. The whole PRS situation is just totally unacceptable.
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